


Good reasons to freeze to death

by singmyheart (orphan_account)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky likes old movies and that makes Steve sad, Drinking & Talking, F/M, First Time, Steve never could get the hang of Thursdays, obnoxious Closer references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-08
Updated: 2012-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-20 14:30:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/586390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/singmyheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Good thing you’re pretty.” She stretches, arms over her head, until her spine cracks, then climbs over him for the beat-up pack of cigarettes on his bedside table.</p><p> </p><p>(Or: Steve like Natasha's scars, and she steals his cigarettes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good reasons to freeze to death

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how this happened but okay here have a fic
> 
> title from the Mountain Goats' "Broom People"

Steve meets Natasha on a Thursday.

Of course it’s a Thursday. It’s been one of those pointless, gray days that just drags on no matter what you do and never seems to end. It’s the middle of February, blindingly bright and bitterly cold, the kind of weather that wind-burns cheeks and leaves people cursing in relief when they finally get indoors, noses running and glasses fogged white. Steve should have worn gloves.

He’s sitting in a shitty bar in Hell’s Kitchen – not even one of those poser places that tries too hard to be a dive, but a truly depressing prewar watering hole – idly trying to think of the names of the women on the yellowed, frayed photos that adorn the walls. Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, Natalie Wood, Bette Davis.

It makes him think of Bucky – and he almost laughs, because what doesn’t, these days – how he’d wake up at four in the morning to an empty bed and find Bucky watching _A Star is Born_ or _Singin’ in the Rain,_ beer sweating in his hand and quoting along with the dialogue. Sometimes Steve just went back to bed but occasionally he’d join him, pad barefoot across their tiny apartment and curl up on their tiny couch with his head in Bucky’s lap, watching him watch the movie. “They don’t make ‘em like this anymore,” he’d say, Judy Garland reflected in his eyes.

 _The Wizard of Oz_ always made him cry. He’d catch Steve watching him and swipe at his red-rimmed eyes, smiling watery and embarrassed, murmuring apologies. Steve would punch his arm and tell him to shut up, and then take him to bed, fuck him slow and close and quiet until Bucky was gasping, murmuring praise and curses into the side of his neck – _god, Steve, fuck, so good, you’re so good -_ eyes wide open and hands pulling white-knuckled at the sheets when he came.

And now Steve’s half-hard in his jeans just at the vividness of the memory; he shifts in his seat and resists the impulse to press his palm between his legs, elects instead to shrug into his beat-up leather jacket and hope the freezing fucking cold and a cigarette will help.

He’s out there for less than a minute before his hands start to get slow and clumsy and bright red with cold. He turns his collar up, shrinks back against the wall, fumbles in his pockets for a smoke and his lighter. It’s one of those refillable metal ones that’s supposed to always catch and stay lit until you flick it closed, but it sputters and dies three times before Steve gives up. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck, fuck,”_ he chants, cigarette between his lips. “Piece of shit.”

“Having trouble?” comes a voice, and it startles him so badly he drops the lighter. He’ll be embarrassed about that later, but now he’s just kind of pissed that it’ll be scuffed. The woman to whom the voice belongs just smiles and picks it up for him. “Sorry,” she says, handing it back; she sounds a little like Barbara Stanwyck, Steve thinks. “Didn’t mean to catch you off guard.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he sighs, intending to just brush her off and go back inside, but then she’s pulling her own lighter out of her pocket, gesturing him toward her. Her hands are small and white and perfect, nails short and free of polish; she tucks a lock of bright red hair behind one ear.

He leans in as she cups her palm around the lighter to shield it, catches her eye over the flame. It catches on the first try. Of fucking course. The first inhale is nothing short of heavenly; it’s bracing, grounding, and he’s glad of it.

He offers her the cigarette with a raised eyebrow, but she waves him off. “No, thanks, I’ve given up.”

“Try harder,” he challenges, lip quirked.

She rolls her eyes, plucks it out of his hand, takes a drag, and blows the smoke away from him. “I’m Natasha,” she offers, sticks out her hand.

“Steve,” he replies, taking it. “You know, you look like Janet Leigh?” He immediately hates himself for such a line, and backpedals. “Sorry, I bet you get that a lot.” _Real smooth, Steve._

Natasha cocks her head to one side, eyes narrowed just a little like she’s studying him, but she’s still smiling, wry. “I don’t, actually.”

They pass the cigarette back and forth for the few minutes it takes to finish it, and he holds the door for her when they go back inside.

 

 

 

 

 

Their tabletop is littered with glasses after a few hours – vodka tonic for her, beer for him – their jackets thrown over the backs of their chairs, she’s toed her shoes off under the table.

He’s learned that she’s Russian, works for Stark Industries, hates olives, loves Alfred Hitchcock and lost a boyfriend a couple of months ago, somebody named Clint. When Steve asks what happened she says, “That’s classified information,” and it rings a little hollow, clearly an old joke that doesn’t make sense anymore.

He wants to tell her about Bucky, mostly because she can probably tell, but instead he asks, “You want to get out of here?”

 

 

 

 

Natasha kisses him in the cab. Just leans into him and when Steve turns to look at her she pushes up to press their mouths together, hand resting feather-light on his jaw. They don’t do anything more; the angle is awkward and the cabbie is giving them disapproving looks in the rearview, turns up the radio. But she’s warm and sighs a little when he bites at her lip, and he doesn’t want to try to sleep alone tonight, drunk and jerking off in the shower to tire himself out. They spill out of the car in front of his building in a tangle of limbs, still kissing while Steve fumbles a handful of bills out of his pocket and tosses them at the driver, who speeds off cursing at them in a language Steve doesn’t care to recognize. She’s pushing him now, walking him backward, crowds him up against the door while he fumbles for his key. He pulls away from her long enough to unlock the door but then just gets sidetracked staring at her; her mouth is wet and swollen from all the kissing, hair a little mussed, and she’s slid her dry, icy hands up the front of his t-shirt to splay across his stomach.

She pokes him in the ribs, hard. “Come on, Jesus, it’s cold.”

“Sorry, sorry…”

By the time they get to his tiny fifth-floor walk-up he’s panting, rubs at his chest a little shamefacedly (he really should quit smoking) but Natasha doesn’t waste any time, quite literally manhandles him against the wall before the door’s even shut behind them. He’s not really sure how she manages to get them both naked so quickly, but suddenly they are, and she hops up to wrap her legs around his waist and lets him carry her into his bedroom.

Steve drops her onto his ancient bed with very little ceremony and takes a moment just to stare; she’s all full, classic Hollywood curves, he notices with a pang, but definitely stronger than she looks, given that she’s been tossing him around for a while now. She’s covered in scars, long, ragged lines faded white over her stomach and thighs and hips, but she doesn’t seem to mind that he’s staring. She’s also a natural redhead, he notices.

“You’re staring again,” she says mildly, reaches up to pull him down on top of her. There’s a brief moment when his arms go out from under him and he’s fearful of crushing her before they readjust, laughing, and then he props himself up on his elbows and slides down the bed, dropping kisses down her chest and stomach as he goes. He bites her thigh and then just goes for it, with no preamble, pushes two fingers into her and licks at her clit slow and easy. Natasha’s breath hitches and when he looks up at her she’s flushed and sweating, the muscles in her stomach working, but there’s no moaning, no curses, no appeals to a deity. She’s pretty quiet and Steve kind of likes that, so he listens hard for what she seems to like, and when she comes it’s with her heel pressed into his back, a hand tangled in his hair and her hips arched clear of the mattress. He rests his chin against her hip while he waits for her to get her breath back.

“Come here,” she murmurs after a minute, gesturing vaguely. He crawls up next to her, leans on an elbow, she presses a kiss to his bicep, eyes closed. “ _Doux présent du present_ …”

“I don’t know what that means,” he confesses after briefly trying to figure it out.

“Good thing you’re pretty.” She stretches, arms over her head, until her spine cracks, then climbs over him for the beat-up pack of cigarettes on his bedside table.

“What, you’re just going to leave me hanging?” he teases, but there’s no conviction in it.

Her smile spreads over her face so slow and flat-out dangerous that Steve immediately regrets asking. “How rude of me.” She drops the smokes, cards a hand through the line of fine, dark hair underneath his navel, and proceeds to subject him to the most excruciatingly thorough blow job of his life. His voice is hoarse from pleading, every muscle taut before she lets him come, and then he’s seeing stars. _Christ._

When he returns to earth she’s lit a cigarette, cloud of smoke ringing her head, and is sitting cross-legged next to him, the wry expression he’s already figured out is probably her default one firmly in place. She makes no move to get dressed, and he’s okay with that. “Thought you’d given up,” he says eventually, throat raw.

Natasha laughs for the first time all night, and offers him the cigarette.

 

 

 

 

They sit in surprisingly companionable silence for a while, talking occasionally, chain-smoking, using an old coffee mug as an ashtray. They fuck another couple of times, unhurried and easy, tasting the tang of smoke and sweat on each other’s skin. He counts her scars. She counts his freckles.

They turn on the TV just in time to watch _The Wizard of Oz_ as dawn begins to break. 


End file.
